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Research and the Open Source Revolution

What is open source anyway?

Open source generally refers to software where the source code is made available for anyone to view, customize, and redistribute. There is also lots of research conducted in the same way with open research and open data. The idea behind open research is to make methodology and data sets widely available.

What are some of the benefits?

Designing the blueprint of a product or tool can take a long time. If you can find structure and/or data suitable to your needs, you will reduce your cost and have more time to focus on other tasks. Open source is shared with everyone, so the source code, methodology, and data will have many sets of eyes. Having more people looking at a product or tool increases the quality, as any bugs or flaws are identified and shared with the open source community.

How can CHAI help you?

CHAI is committed to playing a bigger part in the open source community. We can help connect you with open data, as well as find and modify tools and applications to fit your research project. By sharing any modifications tailored to your project (with your permission), we also bring greater awareness to your research.